"Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: 'You don't understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline'; 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice'; 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards';[1] 'What I say is consistent, what you say isn't'; 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed'; 'Your statement is refuted'; 'You are talking rubbish!'; 'You are in the wrong'; 'Get out of that if you can!'

"Why should you not do this? Such talk, monks, is not related to the goal, it is not fundamental to the holy life, does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment or to Nibbana. When you have discussions, monks, you should discuss Suffering, the Arising of Suffering, its Cessation, and the Path that leads to its Cessation. Why is that? Because such talk is related to the goal... it conduces to disenchantment... to Nibbana. This is the task you must accomplish."

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

Everything starts from the mind. Reality is nothing moved. Only the mind and depending on which way it moves both viewpoints are "right". Ignorance is condition for fabrications. The mind fabricates things. So the most important thing is what happens when the mind stops fabricating.

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

And so ends your first lesson in Yogachara.

.

++++++++++++++++This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

There is freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning. If there were not this freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedom from making, freedom from conditioning, then escape from that which is birth, becoming, making, conditioning, would not be known here. -- Ud 80

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine.People live in one another’s shelter.

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

And so ends your first lesson in Yogachara.

The above story is not complete yet.

It ends with the sentence, "And then came an elderly, withered man, grey, wrinkled and burdened with years, and, after being told what had happened and asked for his view on the matter, replied: 'It is not the flag, the wind or the mind that move but your flattering mouths.'"

pegembara wrote:Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

Everything starts from the mind. Reality is nothing moved. Only the mind and depending on which way it moves both viewpoints are "right". Ignorance is condition for fabrications. The mind fabricates things. So the most important thing is what happens when the mind stops fabricating.

Its not complete without the nun maioxins capper.

As the seventeen monks were walking toward her, Miaoxin said, it's not the wind moving, it's not the flag moving, it's not the mind moving."

All the monks realized enlightenment. They thanked Miaoxin and returned to Shu without seeing Yangshan.

The present manuscript(s) consists of sixty-six fragments, all of which can not be presented here (see BMSC vols. I and II for a full description). Mostly larger fragments and those that are part of a reconstructed folio are here presented. The material is palm leaf, and the script is a square and upright Brāhmi typical of the Kuṣāṇa period. A date in the second half of the third century A.D. is suggested. The language is a mix of Sanskrit and Prakrit forms, also called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, a mix found in many of the manuscripts of the collection. Four folio numbers are preserved (or reconstructed), indicating the large number of leaves originally constituting the manuscript: 4) folio 152, 13) folio 243 , 14) folio 245, and 15) folio 247.

The manuscript is the oldest trace of the Aṣṭāsāhasrikā in an Indic language so far established (although news of an apparently older manuscript from Pakistan has recently surfaced). It had always been assumed that the text was at least this old, as the oldest Chinese translation was done by Lokakṣema in 179-180 A.D. The present manuscript has confirmed this assumption. The text is quite close to the later Nepalese version (eleventh-twelfth century A.D.), but differs from Lokakṣema’s translation, suggesting that more than one Indian recension may have existed as early as the second to third century A.D.

The manuscript preserves, among other things, a discussion from the end of chapter one between Śāriputra and Subhūti, two senior disciples of the Buddha who figure prominently in the Prajñāpāramitā literature. On the first and second line of the first fragment the names Śāriputra and Subhūti may be read. From later editions of the text we know that in the section Śāriputra names Subhūti as ranking first among the teachers of the law (dharma). The text goes: “Addressed like this the venerable Subhūti spoke to the venerable Śāriputra as follows: ‘This is the true state of things of the Lord, venerable Śāriputra, for disciples not dependant on the moments of existence (dharmas). In whatever (way) they are questioned, they find (a way) out and do not obscure the true state of things, and do not turn away from the true state of things.’”

plwk wrote:I can't help but to think that IF the Mahasamghikas and Sarvastivadins were still around, they would have given Theravada a run for the money... lol

They were the dominant schools around India for many centuries. All things considered the Sarvāstivāda school was extremely influential in terms of doctrine and their Vinaya. They were also very skilled at debate as their corpus of texts demonstrate.

The benefit of not having an original canon is that it makes the results of the practice, rather than its "sacredness" or "holiness", the determining factor of its validity, and offsets the tendency to worship or develop strong emotional attachments to a practice that was intended to be just a tool to be picked up, used, and let go of.

When this concentration is thus developed, thus well developed by you, then wherever you go, you will go in comfort. Wherever you stand, you will stand in comfort. Wherever you sit, you will sit in comfort. Wherever you lie down, you will lie down in comfort.